


every story has its chapter in the desert

by misandrywitch



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 5x11, Bipolar Disorder, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, mentions of:, suicide ideation, uhhh yeah its pretty heavy. tread carefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 06:05:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3680748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That was then, and this is now, and maybe those two things are connected, there’s a direct line from Monica to Ian, something you can’t wash out no matter how hard you try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every story has its chapter in the desert

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from 'driving not washing' by richard siken. i'm not ready for sunday.
> 
> shittybknights.tumblr.com

A boy gets into a car and drives down the highway. This isn’t going to end in a punchline.

 

 

 

A boy hops on a bus with a fake ID and a boy couchsurfs using a fake name and a boy gets into a car and drives down the highway, and a boy gets into the back of a truck with his mother. That’s just what he does. There isn’t anything poetic about it.

 

 

 

The first time you run away from home, it feels hard and it feels cold and it feels freeing. You know your family will miss you and you know Fiona will shout at you down the phone when you finally do call and that Debbie will cry and Lip will get cold and sarcastic. You realize as soon as you go that you’ve maybe made a mistake but you don’t do things in half-measures so you try, and when you can’t try anymore you try to steal a helicopter.

That doesn’t work, but it’s a good effort, a good shot. You thought maybe you’d find yourself in the military but you come home in pieces, you come home in tatters, you come home lost.

You run away from home and something always follows you, even when you try to shed your name like a snake does. Inside your head, there’s a door that’s been opened that won’t stay shut.

 

 

 

That’s when you find your mother, find Monica, but she doesn’t have any answers because she doesn’t know how to fix it either. At least you both feel a little less alone, and that’s enough sometimes.

 

 

 

But then you get found. Mickey finds you and you come home and you can’t shut the door but you don’t care. You don’t care because Mickey is pouring you a second cup of coffee and Mickey is hanging out when you’re working and Mickey is crashing in your bed because his family sucks. You don’t care because you’re half-asleep, dozing off somewhere in between waking and dreaming when you hear him say together. You push back, you know you do, because you have to know that he means it this time, you can’t make yourself fall into line, you want it all or you want nothing.

And then he’s spitting at his dad with his face covered in blood, and you think _I do have it all, for real this time._  And you’re happy.

 

 

 

But that doesn’t stay. The door has a name and you have a diagnosis and it’s words you don’t know how to understand because all they mean to you is being abandoned, being fucked up, Monica suicidal in the kitchen on Thanksgiving and how tight Fiona’s arms were around you when you saw the blood on the floor. You try to run before they catch you but you can’t go fast enough. You want to drive the car off a cliff, into a tree, all the way to Florida, but you don’t because you take the baby with you and you love the baby and you take care of the baby.

(You think about calling your mom before you go to ask her if she wants to come along and you very nearly do but something stops you).

 

 

 

They look at you like you’re broken, like you’re glass that’s cracking that they can’t touch in case you’ll shatter. They’re afraid you’ll shatter not only because it means you won’t be whole but because it means the shards will get stuck in their fingers when they try and clean up the mess. Slivers of glass, drawing blood. Baseball bat to the face. There’s nothing you can do about it.

Those slivers of glass have a name and it’s bipolar disorder. Type one. Rapid cycling. Thirty to forty.

 

 

 

 _Like it breaks their heart to look at you,_ is what your mom says when she comes to see you.

 _Even Mickey now._ Maybe you’ve asked for it; pushing him and pushing him and always wanting something he doesn’t seem to know how to give you. Maybe that is selfish. But it’s how you feel.

 

 

 

You’re trying to arrange the story in a way that makes sense to you, so things are how they should be, but you can’t. That was then, and this is now, and maybe those two things are connected, there’s a direct line from _Monica to Ian_ , something you can’t wash out no matter how hard you try. It’s in your blood. It’s in your brain. Maybe you need to look at it from another angle, maybe while you’re in motion.

Everything feels better when you’re moving. Everything seems a little bit farther away.

You’re in love. You’re so in love that it turns your insides out and that’s why you have to leave. This isn’t going to clear up in a few weeks. This isn’t going to go away in a few years. This is a life sentence, and it’s one you have to carry on your own.

 

 

 

You’re in psychiatric care. You’re swallowing pills. You’re putting your hand on a hot stove and you’re hitting the boy you love in the face and you don’t feel better. It’s autumn and everything’s cold and quiet, inside your head is cold and quiet because of the medication, but still moving further down. You don’t feel better. You think about that afternoon when you climbed into the swimming pool, choked with red and gold leaves and rainwater, because you thought it might feel cold or shocking or something. Carl stood on the steps and watched you float in the pool and you thought _I must really look crazy_ and then you thought _fuck it_.

He tossed the toaster in the pool and the water had splashed up onto your face and you almost wish he would have plugged it in.

 

 

 

A boy gets into the back of a truck and lets it take him away down the highway. This isn’t going to end happily.

Maybe once you thought this could end how you’d like it to end, but now you know it’s not possible. You got everything you wanted, but for the wrong reasons, and that’s why you have to leave.

True love doesn’t mean anything without its black underbelly, the way the space between you hurts and hurts and hurts. That space is between your bodies, and in his eyes, and that’s why you have to leave.

 

 

 

Once upon a time there was a kid whose story had a happy ending. You carry him around inside you and he’s still in there, taller than his brothers with too many freckles and badly in need of a haircut. He’s still in there, studying geometry and wondering what he can do to make Mickey Milkovich want to kiss him. It’s not that you aren’t that kid anymore, but there are other things layered over him, rings on a tree, scars on the palm of your hand. Maybe you can dig him out again, but it’s going to hurt. He doesn’t know what any of this feels like, Ian at 15 years old. You don’t know how to look him in the face and tell him. He’s daydreaming about the next time there will be a slow afternoon in the store so he and Mickey can fuck behind the stacks of sodas and metal shelves in the back of the Kash n Grab, swipe a beer or two after to be drunk in secret as the day goes on. He’s never run away from home.

You’re standing in the cold with your mother, running your finger over the scar on your hand that you gave to yourself. You don’t want your story to be his. You don’t want to ruin it for him.

That’s why you have to leave.

 


End file.
